


An Angel's Rise

by kireii_yume



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst With Hope, Gen, Hopeful angst, Mercy - Freeform, overwatch fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8517949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireii_yume/pseuds/kireii_yume
Summary: Dr. Angela "Mercy" Ziegler was always the strong, optimistic, beautiful angel that everyone looked up to. But, when crises happen, that image simply can't last. Only rated teen and up bc of brief language





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys,  
> So I decided to write angst. Yeah, it's weird for me too, I don't usually do this. But here it is. Brief mentions of death, anxiety, and panic attacks. If any of that material is difficult for you to deal with I'd skip this fic. Hope you all at least enjoy!

Dr. Angela “Mercy” Ziegler had experienced enough pain for a lifetime.

First, all the pain of knowing that her weapons, the technology she’d painstakingly researched for what felt like a lifetime, having been used to hurt, to destroy, to cause the utmost pain. She’d shown off this technology so it could help people, and now it was doing just the opposite. Biotic weapons were proliferated throughout Overwatch now, and though they were being used to hurt bad people, they were still used for pain. 

Then, Genji. Seeing that poor Shimada boy, destroyed beyond belief by his brother, and then Angela had to go and destroy him even more. Seeing the agony on his face as he futilely tried to hold onto his humanity, hearing him beg for her to end things, enduring the barrage of curses that Genji spat at her for keeping him in this limbo of human and machine. Watching as Genji tried, in vain, to find a reason to live, wondering night after night if he’d go and end it all and knowing that if he did, she would be powerless to stop it. Worrying that maybe if he did, it would be better for him. Angela still didn’t know where Genji was or what had happened to him. His entire time in Overwatch had been turbulent and painful for him, and he’d just disappeared. Surely, he had to be alive. But Angela simply didn’t know.

And then the day to day. Running and flying through the battlefield, hearing the cries of the wounded echo through the land. She watched the people she healed run off, only to be hurt more, only to go through the excruciating pain again and tense every muscle in their body, trying to make it go away, ignore it, push through it, something, if only so they could live. Sometimes Angela didn’t make it in time. Sometimes she didn’t hear the cry. She didn’t see the distress signal. Or she saw it a fraction too late. She’d activate her staff. See the biotic healing ray engulf the victim. Know it just wasn’t enough. Too little. Too late. 

But Dr. Ziegler could not show her pain. Throughout all of this, she smiled. She laughed. She joked. She made witty remarks, good-naturedly ribbed those around her, because she was the strong one. Jack might be the leader, but everyone looked at Mercy as a mother. A compassionate figure, steadfast and brave till the end. Mercy did not cry. Mercy did not show weakness. Mercy did not get tired. Mercy was never drained. Mercy was beautiful and strong and kind and always, always selfless, because she was a perfect angel and mother to the entire group.

Dr. Angela Ziegler was not. But Dr. Angela Ziegler hid behind her persona of Mercy and wept behind closed doors, her grief hidden from the world. Because the moment Mercy became Dr. Angela Ziegler, the unity of Overwatch would shatter.

But it turned out that it didn’t even take that. 

Overwatch was gone. Disbanded. Jack was dead. Lena was dead. Countless others. Gabriel had turned. Everything was wrong. And Angela was completely powerless. Helpless. Her voice wasn’t enough, her touch couldn’t heal, all of her strength was not good enough to keep Overwatch together, to keep everyone alive. Jack’s blood was on her hands. One of her oldest allies. Gone. Ana was gone. Everyone was gone. And Angela couldn’t do a thing about it. Her chest hurt with the pain, with the sensation of anger and grief threatening to make her burst. She wanted to scream it all away, cry the emotions out of her system, but even that wouldn’t be enough. It didn’t feel like anything would be enough. So Angela “Mercy” Ziegler took a long look at her misgivings, her common sense, everything that kept her sane and normal and healthy, a perfect role model for all those around her. She acknowledged everything that kept her from doing something reckless and dangerous, evaluated it thoroughly…

And she said, “Fuck it.” 

Angela donned her Valkyrie suit, not even bothering to go through the usual rounds of tests. In battle, if she fell, everyone did. Now, it was just her. She was alone, and her actions were her own. Huffing in shallow breaths through gritted teeth, she sprinted out of the small apartment that she inhabited now that the HQ was no more. Shocks vibrated through her knees, her lungs burned, but she didn’t care. She almost slipped on some rocks as the terrain changed, and the salt air of the ocean started to sting her nostrils, but this was where Angela wanted to be, and she knew what she was going to do. In front of her, the rock path she was running abruptly cut off, turning into a cliff hundreds of feet above the ocean. Angela sped up, increasing her speed as much as she could, and leapt off the side of the cliff.

As the air rushed by her, the adrenaline rose up in her chest, making her let out strangled gasps somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Her Valkyrie suit’s wings snapped out seconds before she hit the water, and she flew, far faster than her suit should have allowed, and she simply let herself shoot further and further away from the coast. She counted the waves that slapped her face. One. It almost made her choke, constricting her breathing, too reminiscent of the feeling of knowing that she’d been betrayed, that her wishes had been thrown out the window for the destruction of fellow humans. Two. Her eyes burned, just like they did when Angela had to look Genji in the eyes, trying not to cry as she saw just how much agony she’d put him through. Three. Her skin stung with the combination of the wind and the drying salt, and her suit was shaking, and everything was pain. Everything was pain.

Angela turned back toward the coast after a few moments of that, after she’d managed to drive away the initial hysteria with the adrenaline. As she flew back, everything seemed to be buffeted by the wind except for her tears, which she could feel linger on her cheeks for a second too long. Genji. Lena. Gabriel. Jack. Too many others to count. The hysteria still shook her, but Dr. Ziegler began to recognize it as a panic attack, went through the proper procedure, breathed deeply to counteract the stifling feeling of her chest tightening and tried to tell herself it would pass. She clumsily crashed on the coast, feeling the rocks rip through a bit of the suit’s fabric and cut her hands to ribbons, and she stumbled back to her apartment, gasping and sobbing until her eyes were red and her body felt like she physically was out of tears to cry. Once she arrived, she bandaged her wounds, reverting back to her clinical pragmatism for a moment before sitting on her bed and trying to continue breathing so as to relieve the last vestiges of her anxiety. Everything was too much.

But it wasn’t over.

Time and time again she’d told that to her patients. Paraplegics could find a way around the loss of a limb. Blind men could enhance their other senses. One injury was never the end of the world. Humans are a resilient type, and few should know that as well as Angela did. That couldn’t be any different from her. Overwatch was gone. It was. Angela would bear the scars from that loss for the rest of her life, and no one could tell her otherwise. It would always be painful. But that didn’t mean that she was powerless. People still needed help. Wars were still being waged, humans were still dying. They could be helped. Dr. Angela Ziegler could accept the end of her career and her life…but she could also move on. Try and make life more tolerable for people now that they’d lost their protection. Sure, she couldn’t do much, but she could do something. And that was always better than nothing at all.

Dr. Angela Ziegler had a difficult time. She’d experienced more than enough pain. And it had beaten her down. But she was too strong to simply take it lying down. And, just like an angel, she’d rise up again and find a new life to live.


End file.
